Photography
My photography
I use photography to show something about where I’ve been or people whom I’ve met. As well as trying to see the beauty in a scene or situation, I’m also trying to convey ideas and feelings. My photography is about me and what I do, who I meet and where I go. All my photography tries to be contemporary and creative. I’m resistant to being fitted in to a taxonomy by categorisation such as “travel” or “conceptual” or “nature”. All image-making is political simply by the act of selection and hence exclusion but I am not campaigning for any particular point of view, except to try to see the positives and to live life to the full.
I use 645, 35mm and DX formats plus a handy little digital compact that shoots RAW files. I’ve experimented with non-lens photography - do ask!
I first worked in a monochrome/silver wet darkroom at age 7, helping my Father with scientific prints; I’ve used colour negative materials since age 21 and digital since 2005. I use Photoshop (Adobe) and Photopaint (Corel).
A rich mix of traditional English garden flowers jostling with subtropical leaves: two banana trees, the neighbour’s grape vine, a tree fern and a fine spread of summer colour between, under the greengage tree in Terry’s garden in Preston Park, Brighton.
Brighton West Pier ruins’ distorted reflection in the bubble-glass doughnut-shaped gondola of the i360, the attraction which replaces it on almost the same site. Someone inside the viewing pod is also taking a picture. The West Pier has been photographed many times since was opened in 1866; its ruin became an icon of the failures of heritage planning after it was damaged by a storm in 2002 and destroyed by two successive fires in 2003. All the decking and most of the metal struts have now gone. The Brighton i360 carries up to 200 passengers to 162 m. above sea level. Here's my view of the attraction itself: Brighton i360
We hiked the far side of Ullswater from Patterdale and Glenridding. There’s a famous painting by JMW Turner of this view in 1797 (now in the Tate Gallery). It’s instructive to compare the artist’s view and choices compared with the natural landscape. My first picture shows my personal view of Ullswater with Patterdale Old Hall, two hundred years later.
However forcing a picture of a particular view doesn’t always work: Patterdale Old Hall is now unimportant whereas nearby Glenridding is a bustling village which gained unwanted attention due to the flooding following Storm Desmond in December 2015. So I prefer the view framed through the trees and the stone wall, the superficial summer time peace concealing the recent devastation and distress.
But then the publishers of postcards and calendars often feature the open view with the skyline of the Helvellyn range reflected on the surface of Ullswater.
Interesting also having visited Petworth Park just a week ago, the stately home of one of the artist’s major admirers: Nature or Nurture?
Petworth House Park in Sussex. I rather like the expansive park with views to the South Downs beyond: the classic contrast of Nature and Nurture accentuated by the summer colours. The park’s a design by “Capability” Brown. Petworth, the home of the Dukes of Somerset, is more usually famous for its art collection, notably Holbein’s portrait of Henry VIII and many works by JMW Turner.
Victorian railway architecture brings its own elegance to the railway experience. Brighton has long played the part of elegant seaside pleasure town since the Prince Regent established his party pavilion here before even Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837. Brighton railway station was opened in 1840 then expanded in 1882-3, including the fine canopy of glazed ironwork designed by H.E. Wallis.
